Everything Bad Is Good For You Analysis

Steven Johnson in an excerpt from “Everything Bad is Good For You” argues that the Sleeper Curve is positively influencing and “altering the mental development of young people today.” It is especially interesting that Johnson points out that reality programming nowadays are comparable to video games as it is structured as “a series of competitive tests, growing more challenging over time.” This has given rise to a new form of complexity associated with televised intelligence and planted the seed of inquiry and curiosity in the minds of people over the decades. A simple demonstration is given by Johnson himself when he claims that “[initially] the conventional wisdom among television execs was that audiences wouldn't be comfortable following

However, improving the culture may not always be the priority, as we all know the worth of money. Therefore, I believe that profit-oriented content will tend to do more harm than good to the mental development of children today. In fact, mentally degrading content are made available to kids all over the world at the end of their fingertips, despite the numerous exercises of parental controls in place today. Then again, we have to bring ourselves to ask why do our kids actually attempt to go after such things, as Dylan points out that this “may in fact just be a result of our modern times and the complexity of our own lives.” Johnson, on the other hand, provides an excellent solution, advocating a change in the way we decide what is best for our children. This may not be the perfect solution in its entirety, but is necessarily a step in the right direction. Thus, giving our children the right exposure of the culture we all share as humans is not degenerative and should be encouraged, especially since we “imagine the blurring of kid and grown-up cultures as a series of